“It is said that there will come a time soon when there will no more qualified teachers to guide us. The teachings will still exist in books, and perhaps our wish to progress on the path will be there, but we will be without guides. And without somebody to lead us to enlightenment it will be impossible because the most subtle subjects can only really be understood, and more importantly realized, by taking guidance from a fully qualified teacher,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in the first chapter of Perfect Human Rebirth: Freedom and Richness on the Path to Enlightenment.

“Therefore, we must generate the determination to make the most of every moment. At this time, with this body and mind, in this environment, we have a unique and precious opportunity to understand the teachings of the Buddha and to generate the realizations of the path to enlightenment. If we attempt it, there is nothing we cannot do. We need to see this. We need to understand how limitless our potential is and not block our precious chance with delusions of incapability. ‘I can’t do it! I’m hopeless.’

“It is time to have big thoughts – huge thoughts! It is time to make vast plans, to lay out the immense project ahead of us and feel so happy that we can achieve our goal to develop ourselves to our ultimate potential. We have perfect role models in the Buddha and the numberless great yogis who followed him, as well as the precious lamas we have the fortune to be able to take teachings and gain inspiration from, and we have the understanding that we have exactly the same potential as they do. Shakyamuni was exactly like us once; His Holiness the Dalai Lama was exactly like us once. In turn, we can be exactly like them. All the conditions are there. What it needs now is our determination.”

More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage.If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.

“People get excited about strange things. I recently saw a group of men kicking a ball into a big net between two sticks and hundreds of thousands of people were cheering and throwing their hands up in the air, while millions watched on television. Everybody was totally out of control with excitement. In fact, their faces were so distorted I couldn’t tell whether they were very happy or in great pain. This World Cup seems extremely important to many people, but it also brings misery and jealousy, as well as anger and hatred when your country beats my country,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught in the first chapter of The Perfect Human Rebirth: Freedom and Richness on the Path to Enlightenment.

“On the other hand, a real cause for excitement and happiness is simply having this human body. If we could truly understand even a tiny part of its value, we would have a million times more reason for jumping in the air and shouting for joy the way those soccer fans do. Every day – every second – we should have a huge feeling of joy in our hearts that we have this precious possession that gives us the opportunity to do whatever we want. With it, we can achieve anything we want, to benefit ourselves and to benefit others.

“In sports and in worldly activities, people are always chasing the best and trying to be first in whatever they do. But winning at the Olympics, climbing Mount Everest, whatever people consider to be a great achievement, is really nothing. We have all done this kind of thing innumerable times, in past lives if not in this one, and it certainly hasn’t made us any happier.

“In fact, in our countless previous lives we have enjoyed every kind of pleasure innumerable times. We have achieved states we can’t even imagine. There is no new pleasure or experience that we have never had. We have been born in god realms where there is no overt suffering at all. We have achieved great powers of concentration, a concentration so profound that, as the great master Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo explains in his commentary on The Three Principal Aspects of the Path to Enlightenment, even a big drum beating right next to our ear could not disturb us. And we have even attained high psychic powers such as clairvoyance and the ability to fly. None of this is new. Such things seem special only because we don’t understand reincarnation and therefore don’t realize that in our beginningless previous lives we have done it all over and over again. …”

You can read more of this excerpt from “What is Dharma?” the first chapter of The Perfect Human Rebirth: Freedom and Richness on the Path to Enlightenment by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website.

Learn more about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche and his beneficial activities by visiting Rinpoche’s homepage, where you will find links to Rinpoche’s schedule, new advice, recent video, photos and more.

Don’t forget that the starving person preoccupied by hunger and the person obsessing over what to buy next at the supermarket are basically the same. Mentally, rich and poor are equally disturbed, and, fundamentally, one is as unhappy as the other.